


It's Hard Being the Antichrist

by miss_grey



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Adorable, Angst, Attempted Rape/Non-Con, Blood and Gore, Bonding, Fluff, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Leviathans, Mind Control, accidental mind control, family don't end with blood - Freeform, underage law-breaking and shenanigans
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-06-24
Updated: 2014-09-27
Packaged: 2018-02-05 23:50:56
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,856
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1836691
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/miss_grey/pseuds/miss_grey
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's hard being the antichrist.  Fourteen year old Jesse Turner is on the run from both Heaven and Hell.  He spends his days travelling the world, trying to find a balance between teenage angst and apocalyptic power.  An accidental run-in with a defiant, run-away Claire Novak might be just what they both need.</p>
<p>A story about family, free will, and saving the world, sort of. </p>
<p>Picks up right after the Leviathans are released into the world.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> Hello all, so this story was spurred by my frustration over a lack of answers on the Jesse Turner front. And also because I sort of love that kid. So, here we go!

 

 

           The sun broke the horizon over Badlands National Park at exactly 5:06 am, rays of light shattering across the desolate landscape, painting the canyons and ridges in a palette of golds and reds and browns.  The darkness shifted, receding into the complex, sprawling network of cracks and canyons, carved over time by the receding sea and harsh winds.

            The buttes were a harsh place, especially on hot summer days, when dry air whipped through the layers of stone, slowly eroding them away.  Animals prowled in the nearby prairies, some of them just waking up, others finally falling asleep.  It was peaceful, solitary. 

            Jesse Turner sat on the edge of a cliff, scuffed green Converse-clad feet dangling dangerously into the canyon below.  He swung his legs silently back and forth as he chewed on his simple peanut butter and jelly sandwich, and watched the sun rise.  He was warm and cozy in his dark worn hoodie—the Badlands would grow hot soon, but now the air was still chilled from the night.  Jesse had grown used to cheap, quick food that he could carry with him in his backpack, but he didn’t mind too much.  PB&J was one of his favorites, especially if he was able to get his hands on some strawberry jelly.

            He’d been here for hours already—it was probably too long, but he’d wanted to watch the sun rise, curious to see the myriad colors and light paint the bleak landscape.  They were both beautiful, Jesse thought, but in different ways.  But soon he’d have to move on; it wasn’t safe to stay in one place for more than a few hours, not unless he wanted trouble.

            Things had gotten bad lately, or, well…worse than usual.  Jesse had been running for years now, ever since that night when demons and angels and hunters came into his home and tried to kill him and use him for their own purposes.  Ever since then, they hadn’t stopped, and so neither had Jesse.  Heaven and Hell both wanted to get their hands on him, and he was equally desperate not to get caught. 

            There had been several close encounters, like that time in Sydney when an angel had found him, called him “abomination” and tried to kill him with one of those bright gleaming swords.  Or that time in Budapest when the gang of demons had found him sleeping under a bridge.  At first, they’d tried to do…bad things…to him, but then after they’d realized what he was, they’d been afraid, and they’d threatened to take him to Hell.  Jesse had dealt with them just like he’d dealt with all the other monsters, human and supernatural alike, that he’d run into.

            It had been years.  Jesse was 14 now; old enough to know how to get places and do things on his own, but still young enough to raise suspicions almost everywhere he went.  It wasn’t easy, but then life never was.  And anyway, it wasn’t like Jesse was helpless.  He’d basically raised himself; it wasn’t much different now.

            Jesse popped the last piece of bread crust in his mouth and chewed quickly.  He washed it all down with a can of Coke, then wiped his mouth on the back of his hand.  He stood, pulling his black backpack over his shoulders, and he took one long, last look around.  He exhaled, and the hint of a smile curled his lips, before he closed his eyes, thought of green rolling hills, and disappeared.

 

 

 

 

* * *

 

            The setting sun cast his shadow ahead of him as he walked along the side of the two-lane highway somewhere in southern California.  He’d been walking along that stretch of road for a while, but the weather was nice and the traffic was light, so he figured he’d continue on for a bit longer.  It wasn’t like he had anywhere to be anyways.

            Just before the sun dipped down below the hills, a middle-aged man in a pick-up truck pulled over on the side of the road, window rolling down as Jesse approached.  Jesse came just close enough to see inside, where the man, who had an unkempt beard and blood-shot eyes waved at him.  “Hello.”  Jesse said, unwilling to say anything else.

            “Hey kid,” the guy called, in a deep, sort of scratchy voice, “where ya headed?”

            Jesse shrugged his thin shoulders.  “Nowhere in particular.”

            “Need a ride?”  The words sounded innocent enough, but Jesse had been tricked by innocent words before.  He’d gotten pretty good at looking deeper, and he could see a darkness inside of this man.  He wasn’t a demon, or a monster or anything like that, but it didn’t mean much.  Jesse knew for a fact that humans could be just as bad, maybe even worse.  This man’s eyes raked over Jesse’s thin, t-shirt clad torso and young, freckled face, and he licked his lips.

            Jesse took a step back from the window, tugging his backpack higher up on his shoulder.  “No, thanks.  I’m good to walk.”

            “Come on, kid.  This highway is no place for someone like you.  It’s gonna be dark soon.”

            Jesse shrugged.  “The darkness doesn’t bother me.”

            “Come on.  Get in the truck.  I’ll get you something to eat, and give you a place to sleep for the night while you figure out where you want to go, huh?  How’s that sound?”

            Jesse knew that if he got in the truck, if he was a normal boy, like this man thought, he’d never make it out alive.  He shuddered, felt a wave of darkness building inside of himself, but he held it back determinedly, and took another step away from the truck.  “I don’t need a ride.”  He turned and took up his pace again, perfectly content to walk through the night.  He hadn’t taken more than ten steps before the driver’s door creaked open and the man’s heavy steps hit the pavement.  Jesse glanced over his shoulder in time to see the man gaining on him, face now crumpled in rage.  Jesse tripped, startled, and fell to the pavement, scraping his hand as he went. 

            “Come here!”  The man snarled, greedy, evil hands grasping for him where he lay sprawled on the ground.  Jesse couldn’t help it.  He panicked, eyes flinching closed, and he threw a hand up to protect himself from his attacker, but the attack never came.

            Jesse opened his eyes warily and found himself alone; the man was nowhere to be found, and the only sounds were Jesse’s own rapid breaths and the roar of the truck engine from where it still idled at the side of the road.  Jesse gulped down a breath and pushed himself back to his feet.  He turned his back on the truck and started walking again.  This wasn’t the first time something like that had happened.  He wasn’t sure where he’d sent the man, but he knew that he wouldn’t be coming back.

 

 

 

            That night, Jesse sprawled in a field about a half mile from the highway, and watched the stars until he fell asleep.


	2. The Monster Wearing My Father's Face

 

 

            Claire Novak had been on eight kinds of drugs since she’d watched that monster wearing Jimmy Novak’s face take her father away from her. 

            It had been hard enough trying to live her life after that—knowing that somewhere out there, her father was being yanked around against his will, forced to do God knows what in some never-ending tug of war between the angels and demons. 

            It was harder when Claire looked in the mirror and realized that the same monster who took her father had also tried to take her.  He’d been inside her—slid right under her skin and settled there.  All holy fire and light, burning through her.  So what if Castiel was an angel?  He was a son of a bitch as far as Claire was concerned. 

            He’d come to her when she was a child—lightning in a bottle—and told her that the only way for her to save her father was to let him in.  She’d done it, and she’d never been able to forget it.  She still felt him there, even though he was gone—static on her skin.  Electricity in her veins.

            She tried to explain it to her shrink once.  He’s scribbled down more notes about her _persistent delusions_ and she’d eventually told him to go fuck himself.  Now she didn’t care.  No one believed her.  No one listened.  Not even her mother, Amelia, who eventually managed to convince herself that the whole mess with the demons and angels never happened.  Before she left Claire in _that place,_ she’d looked her straight in the eyes and said “You’re sick, honey.  But they’ll help you here.  Angels didn’t take your father.  He just ran off.  I know it’s hard to accept, but you have to.”

            Claire hadn’t bothered calling her mom since she’d left her.  Maybe _she_ was cool with forgetting everything that had happened, but Claire wasn’t so quick to forgive and forget. 

            In group, she finally quit sharing when Tommy Pinnick started calling her “Her Holiness.”  That was fine, too.  Tommy Pinnick wasn’t so quick to share anymore either after Claire punched him in the face for it.  They isolated her after that incident, but she didn’t give a fuck.  She was already locked in the psych ward of some hospital. What did she care if they locked her in solitary?  She wasn’t afraid of the other patients, and she wasn’t afraid of being alone, either.  The only things she was afraid of weren’t bothered by things like bars and locks.

            But Claire knew how to deal with them as well.   Castiel had left her with some serious issues, but he’d left her with something useful as well: a shit-ton of knowledge about angels and demons.  Claire was tatted up in sigils that repelled both—she’d done some of the work herself when she was fourteen, before her mother had tried to have her committed the first time.  The Enochian sigils spread across both hip bones just below the line of her jeans.  She’d needed help with the anti-possession tattoo, though, because she’d wanted it to sit at the top of her spine, just under her hairline. 

            They told her she was crazy in so many different ways, using unpronounceable scientific jargon.  All of it meant the same thing, though: she’d imagined the whole ordeal with her father, and the angel Castiel.  Claire knew the doctors had no idea what they were talking about, though.  And she didn’t need them to believe her.  But she’d never forgive her mother for abandoning her like she had.

            Claire had been in the ward for almost a year—just long enough for her rage to morph into something even darker, when she finally saw him on the news: a monster, wearing her father’s face, grinning maniacally back at a security camera after he slaughtered a room full of political campaigners.  Claire felt vindicated in the worst possible way.  She also knew this was likely to be her only chance to get the answers she needed.  To get some sort of closure.  To get revenge and kill the angel who took her father and her life away from her.

 

 

 

 

            It wasn’t exactly _easy_ to escape, but it wasn’t hard, either.  The hard part was deciding where to go after she managed to dodge security.  The best thing she could think to do was head toward the last place Castiel had been seen.  She wasn’t sure what she’d do when she got there, but she knew that angels could die, and she knew more than one way to get that done. 

            She ended up having to hitch hike.  Wasn’t a surprise.  It wasn’t like she had a car, and despite what her mother liked to think, she wasn’t exactly a _criminal._ Claire knew how to do lots of things, but hot-wiring cars wasn’t one of them.  Still, she was a seventeen year old girl.  It was easy to get a ride when she asked for one.

            On more than one occasion she had to lay down the law and get a little physical with whatever guy was _courteous enough_ to pick her up.  But Claire wasn’t dumb.  She traveled with a little bit of her own insurance, and most of the time that meant four inches of finely honed steel placed in _just the right spot._ It wasn’t always nice, and it wasn’t always easy, but eventually, Claire got to where she wanted to be. 

            Except, by the time she got there, Castiel was long gone.

 

 

 

            Claire wandered after that, frustrated, determined to find any trace of the angel that she could.  The problem though, was that her warding didn’t quite work as well as she’d hoped.  There was one thing that she didn’t know how to ward against.  A new monster.  A kind of monster that finally found her while she tried to sleep on a park bench in Athens, Georgia.

            She felt them _just before_ they could grab her.  She leapt to her feet, the weariness of sleep falling away from her quickly as she assessed her new situation.  It was night time, the park was abandoned, and she was suddenly surrounded by four _things_ that looked like people but weren’t. 

            A woman wearing a knee-high blue dress took a step toward Claire and smiled at her with a too-large mouth.  “What are you doing out here all alone, sweetheart?”  She purred.

            Claire pulled her knife from her boot and held it out in front of her.  “Leave me the hell alone.  Don’t take another step closer.”

            A middle aged man in a suit circled her from around the back.  “My, my.  You’re still such a tender young thing but you smell _just like him._ We’d recognize that scent anywhere.”

            “What?”  Claire demanded.  “Smell like who?  Like what?”

            “The angel Castiel, of course.”  The woman grinned.  “We can still smell his grace on you.”

            “You’re gonna taste _so good_.”  A third man said.

            Claire tried to run.  She really did.  But the _things with human faces_ were faster than her, and stronger.  They grabbed her, and she tried to scream, but the air died in her lungs when their mouths opened wide enough to swallow her.  They were going to _eat her_ , she realized too late.  She jerked against their hold, and gasped out a breath, desperate to be free and away from there.  Far away.  Part of her wanted to pray for help, but another part of her, a larger part, didn’t want to give the angels the satisfaction.  Still, it seemed like _something_ was listening, or looking out for her.  But it wasn’t anyone that Claire expected.

            She was about to die, she knew it.  Four sets of jaws were opened wide around her, ready to devour her, when they all froze at the sound of a new voice.

            It was young, and cracked with adolescence.  Still, it was stern when it said “Let her go.”

            One of the creatures holding her finally released her and whirled to face the new-comer, sneering “Ooooh, it’s you!  Two for one night, folks!  This one’s gonna be so satisfying going down.”

            Claire stumbled when a second monster released her, and she turned to get a look at her would-be savior.  The first thing she saw was scuffed green converse planted firmly in the crushed grass.  Her eyes traveled up skinny jean-clad legs, to a gray hoodie, and finally to a dark-haired, wide-eyed boy who stood with his arms at his sides, face twisted up with determination.  “Let her go and leave here now.”

            “Or what?  You can’t kill us, little boy.  And we know who you are.  Oh, yes we do.  We know all about you thanks to that angel, and we know what he tried to do to you, too.”

            The kid jutted his chin defiantly.  “If you know who I am, then you know you should listen to me.  I won’t say it again.  Leave her alone.”

            The monster in the blue dress turned on her heel and stalked toward him with a sneer.  “Make us.”

            It happened all of a sudden, then.  The kid clenched his fists, just barely, his eyes seemed to darken—the air all around Claire grew tight and staticky, and then the monsters were screaming.  A second later, they began to melt into the ground, screeching as they went, until there was nothing but puddles of black goo where they’d once stood.  Claire gasped, utterly horrified but impressed at what she just seen.  The boy looked shocked at what he’d done, and he turned his big eyes on her.  “You should get out of here.”  He said, voice shaking.  “It’s dangerous.”

            “Wait!”  Claire shouted, taking a shaking step toward him.  “Who are you?  What are they?  What did you do to them?”

            The kid shook his head.  “You don’t wanna know.”  He muttered, then he disappeared into thin air and Claire was left alone in the park, surrounded by puddles of black goo.

            “Son of a bitch.”  She swore.

**Author's Note:**

> Comments are love! Let me know what you think, and feel free to stalk me at my tumblr: http://realhunterswearplaid.tumblr.com/


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